the character of dumbledore is one that has been depicted a million different ways in fanfiction, and quite a few more ways than that by the readers of canon. so, out of curiosity, what do you think dumbledore is like?

for example, the first and second movies, the sorcerer's/philosophers's stone had richard harris who displayed a sedate, older man. the rest of the movies, after harris's untimely death, held michael gambon as dumbledore, who took the part in a more active role, in my opinion, similar to some of the more manipulative versions seen in fanfiction.

for myself, i've always seen dumbledore in canon as just like rowling describes him. his name, according to rowling, comes from the old english word bumblebee as she imagines him to hum as he walks the halls of hogwarts. he's a slightly insane old guy, a little touched in the head, but a genuinely loving guy, who, though he tries time and time again, always falls short. he's powerful, but still human, and as marchbanks said, or implied to me (my memory's fuzzy) about him in his OWLs, he was a remarkably talented wizard who was slightly in awe of magic at all times.

i'll get some hate for this, but after i thought about it, rowling's revelation that dumbledore was gay really came as no surprise to me and actually filled in his character.

share you views. realistically. i know this is DLP, but what did you imagine the canon dumbledore to be like when you first picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone?

 

Why would he being gay not come as a surprise? Or fill his character?

Does being "slightly insane...touched in the head, geniunely loving guy.... powerful but human?" remain an exclusively gay characteristic?

And Rowling's 'revelation' was just sucking up to the crowd. She didn't have the courage to write it in the book. And for me, that means it's not canon.

 

okay, that may have come out wrong. let me put it this way: i can see it fitting into his character easily. honestly, dumbledore is a complex character, and while rowling may have left some to be desired in the way she told his story, the way his character was, wearing shooting stars on his robes, always wearing strange outfits (i'm pretty sure that was more touched upon in the first book quite a few times) and then the largely focused light on dumbledore in DH was an indication. it was a surprise, but not one i really gave two shits about. dumbledore being gay, or not depending on if you consider it canon, didn't change dumbledore at all: it merely added another dimension.

maybe it was because i picked up harry potter in the second grade, way back in the '90's, and i was more naive, but magic to me was insane, and pretty fucking cool. the way rowling seemed to poke fun at the whole seriousness of magic by incorporating it into the modern world, and repeatedly showing wizards' inability to fit into the regular world, made it comical to me. of course dumbledore is insane. he's the strongest of them all, so of course his personality is the strangest of them all. he's weird. but i liked it and still do. so, now forwarding a few years, any further deviations from the societal norm failed to phase me.

regardless, you didn't answer my question: what do you think, or what did you think, dumbledore is/was like in canon?

Edit: I can capitalize thank you.

 

:/ Why is it that this guy; after 147 posts, still cannot capitalize his words?

I mean; even the new Kenyan had gotten into capitalizing by his 5th post. What makes this guy so special?


And on topic: Dumbledore's sexuality is irrelevant. You don't see him diddling any of the other teachers or having any relationships that are past a professional level; except with Harry (and if you imply he's a pedo I will brain you). Snape was his attempt at redeeming another person.

No matter what happens; to me Dumbledore has always been to me; the grandfatherly, slightly addled, but most importantly, most powerful wizard in the series. His heart was always in the right place in his meddlings, but he still makes mistakes. Ultimately, to me, he's always a good guy, and essentially, for Dumbledore; what you see is what you get. I've always hated !manipulativeDumbledore fics because of this.

 

Nothing makes this guy any more special. Learn to capitalize or GTFO. You aren't a few-days-old noob who can claim ignorance, you are just lazy.

More so, you ask about a topic that we've recycled five-hundred billion times through DLP. Do you think no one has ever analyzed characters of Harry Potter before? on DLP? If not in its legitimate own thread than in dozens of smaller ones that go on for ever and ever?

Wow.

 

Shezza's Dumbledore in the Denarian series is exactly how I see Dumbledore. Not a single fault with his characterisation in that fic.

 

Every single new paragraph, every single new sentence and every single 'I' is unfuckingcapitalized.

No, you CANNOT capitalize.

 

Let's not forget proper nouns!

 

To be honest, I think the Dumbledore described in most Indy!Harry fics is the most accurate.

I don't see how it can be claimed that he is anything more than a manipulative "light" version of Voldemort.

It's clear in retrospect that he either knew almost everything that was happening to Harry, but let it happen anyway, or encouraged it to happen.(yeah... Lets just leave an enchanted mirror in a random unlocked room, I wonder if anyone will find it. And when it is found, and the idea of how it works is explained, lets move it to guard an object which is obviously a high risk target of a psychopath.) Or he didn't know what was happening and didn't care enough to find out, which certainly takes much away from the grandfatherly persona.

 

Yea, I'm sorry. I guess I didn't really think to search the topic. Now that I look at it, it does seem trivial, but it's always been a question of mine. Something stupid, but true.

And I guess I am lazy. Sorry for that too. I didn't really think capitalizing mattered on a forum.

 

I concur. Shezza's Dumbledore is a masterpiece and one of my favorite characters in fanfiction.

 

Apologizing when you're being a tool is better than getting e-rage, so I guess I can give you that. Yes, capitalizing matters very much. We are an articulate forum, not some early-teen mugglenet.

But let's think about Albus Dumbledore for now. Dumbledore was powerful in his youth, and his best friend Gellert Grindelwald led him down the path of 'the greater good'. They were going to take over the world together, through the Deathly Hallows, to make society better.

Then Dumbledore got his head on straight with the death of his sister, and tried to stop Gellert who continued on his quest for domination and became a dark lord. Being so powerful, and having a personal interest in the matter, Dumbledore quickly became a beacon for hope in the wizarding world during Grindelwald's days. This would continue up until the fifth book, when he is discredited and turned into a senile fraud.

One of the bigger points about his character is that his fame would have been good for the old Dumbledore's quest for dominance. Yet JKR shows his reluctance for more power -knowing how it affected him and others such as Gellert, in how he never pursued the Minister of Magic job.

Dumbledore went into his life filled with guilt over his sister and reluctance to become something greater because he always feared his past failings and what they showed about his character. For that reason, I believe, he pursued a life as a teacher where he could lead the next generation of witches and wizards in the right direction, and was pushed into his spots at the Wizengamot and ICW by a government in need of guidance.

More so, I think that Dumbledore is as much of a foil to Voldemort's character as Harry is. Then again, Dumbledore is 'supposedly' Harry's mentor, not that I ever saw anything of importance go on in the sixth book sessions besides intricate riddles.

 

This, to me, makes him a bit of a libertarian, not a controller. Letting things happen.

In fact at the end of PS Harry confronts Dumbledore about this very fact. Did he know what Harry was doing? Did he give him the information to lead him on? And Dumbledore replies that he did: he gave Harry the information he would need, should he choose to confront Voldemort.

 

It's all well and good to be a libertarian, until you are putting charges whom you are directly responsible for in danger.

To be honest, it seems like the Dumbledore described in the books is trying, in some weird way, to make up for the mistakes he made with Voldemort. He tries to recreate the same upbringing in Harry, but then takes a more active role in Harry's life during his schooling years, perhaps he is seeking some form of absolution.

 

This is stupid. Dumbledore wasn't headmaster when Tom Riddle was at Hogwarts. He had no control over Tom Riddle's upbringing.

 

I'm with most of DLP on Dumbledore's sexuality. By the time we see him in relevant canon, he is more asexual than an anything else, purely because of his intelligence and age. Rowling's pandering only makes it fit because certain things can fit into many personalities. I read all seven books and never once wondered if Dumbledore was gay. His friendship with Grindelwald might be construed that way, but only if you want to end up implying that close friendship between males automatically = teh gayz. Both men and women often have very strong bonds with either one or more friends of the same gender. The only thing that makes anything "fit" is Rowling's non-canon BS.

As far as his actual character, I view Dumbledore as a bit of a tortured genius. He spent his whole life fighting for people he could have dominated because his sister taught him the lesson that kept him from choosing power and ease over justice and being right. There are times where we see this coming through, in his dealings with the Ministry. The thing about magic is that it crystallizes human characteristics and makes them applicable in a physical sense. Dumbledore's tremendous mental capacity translates into the same type of magical capability. Many times he had to find the balance between asserting his legitimate supremacy (magic) and maintaining moral correctness, the easy way or the "right way." He had an extremely powerful mind and the magic that came with it, and was often in the position of being burdened with knowledge that forced him to play the puppeteer or being the only one strong enough to resolve a situation. Prophecies are told to people who can do something about them, and it is no coincidence that Dumbledore was the one to whom fate imparted its message. Dumbledore was a man who chose to do what was right with his power rather than what was easy, which made him a martyr in some ways and a demon in others.

 

I realize that it is not the most ideal outlook on the character, but at the same time, i can't see any other reason for him purposefully placing Harry with the Dursleys.(Blood wards is a very weak excuse when a fidelius could function just as well.)

Note that this is only my opinion, I could be way off the mark here.

 

Dumbledore didn't have any control over Riddle's upbringing as a child in the orphanage, but he certainly could have made a better impression on him when he visited him in the orphanage.

He also could have paid more attention to Riddle in his Hogwarts years by trusting him more and treating him like a human, instead of being distantly suspicious of him at every turn.

He should have recognized the transformations Riddle was going through in his years at Hogwarts; he was after all his Transfiguration professor, with tons of wordly experience, and in the realms of magic, and widely respected as one of the most powerful, intelligent wizards of the time.

He could have mentored him and pushed him down the right path so Riddle didn't make the same mistakes he and Gellert did.

But no, he did nothing. He watched from afar, instilled a deep seated fear of himself into Riddle during their first meeting that he never corrected, and pushed Riddle away at every chance it seems.

Dumbledore certainly could have had a huge positive impact on Riddle if he chose to reach out and intervene, but he didn't. He failed, and it might have been possible to stop the transformation from Riddle into Voldemort.

 

Er, by doing what, exactly? Tom Riddle, from the very first time we saw him in canon, had a nasty streak and a dislike for any muggle he'd ever known. He could have shown him more magic, but then the boy would have been excited to learn it so he could make people pay.

But Tom was already guilty of doing all the things Dumbledore was suspicious of, so that's not an argument at all. What would treating him more like a human do?

He did, that's why he was suspicious. He just had no idea some nobody coming from a small orphanage would gain so much political clout and lead a revolution/coup. That's how things work: you don't punish people preemptively.

He wasn't doing it for the 'good of the world'. Where did DLP's motto come from? There's no good or evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.

Again, what the hell is some no-brow kid and his band of buddies going to do? Why would Dumbledore believe him special, like Harry? The only thing he saw was a delinquent with a chip on his shoulder, and that's what he was. He was also exceedingly powerful, and evil, from his origin. Hell, think Slughorn and the Horcruxes. And that's all Tom Riddle ever was, an evil psycho.